Christmas – New York Polyphonyhttp://www.newyorkpolyphony.com
Fri, 16 Mar 2018 13:46:16 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.486061121Nowel, Noel, Nowell!http://www.newyorkpolyphony.com/nowel-noel-nowell/
Sat, 21 Dec 2013 16:21:23 +0000http://www.newyorkpolyphony.com/?p=1705It’s Advent, and because New York Polyphony sings a lot in December, we encounter the word noel a great deal.

If you’re like me, you’ve not thought much about the word noel and what it means. My first time encountering the word was as a small child when I learned the popular Christmas carol “The First Nowell”. When you’re learning language as a youngster, you often overlook words you don’t understand and infer the meaning by context. Some words never really gain definitions; they just inhabit a lexically vague area of the brain associated with other words from context. For me, Nowell was one of them.

I distinctly remember the second time I encountered the word noel (variant spelling). A girl in my first grade class was named Noel. I remember thinking that her name was hilarious! (What can I say? I was a kid!) For a while, all I could think of when singing a Christmas carol with the word Nowell in it was Noel’s face. I can still picture her today.

So, what does this word that many of us have sung hundreds of times mean?

Here’s the answer: it comes from the Latin word nasci – to be born. This converts to the noun natalis, which, in Christianity obviously refers to the birth of Jesus. As Romance languages spread alongside Christianity in Europe, the word nael (from the Latin natalis) made its way into old French. After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, nowel appears in Ond English. In French, Noël came to mean Christmas. Today, noel is defined by Mirriam-Webster in the modern English language as both 1.) a Christmas carol, and (when capitalized) 2.) Christmas. You can imagine that a song like “Nowel: Arise and Wake” was originally intended as an announcement of the song form “Christmas Carol” and then the title, “Arise and Wake”. By the way, we sing two versions of this song. One is a Medieval setting from the Ritson Manuscript, and the brand-new setting by Andrew Smith which we premiered this month for the Miller Theatre at Columbia University.

So, Happy Holidays everyone, or “Merry/Happy Christmas” if that better suits you. May your season be bright, may you find yourself under a lot of mistletoe, and may your noel singing be melodious and perfectly in tune! (And apologies to Noel for my first-grade sense of humor.)

]]>1705Lessons learnedhttp://www.newyorkpolyphony.com/lessons-learned/
Sat, 27 Oct 2012 11:56:38 +0000http://www.newyorkpolyphony.com/?p=1161It’s no secret how CHRISTMAS CRAZY I am. So, as the person responsible for programming New York Polyphony’s December concerts, I’m looking at and listening to potential Christmas repertoire…often as early as May. The struggle then is to keep the Christmas tunes off my various media devices as long as possible to avoid the dreaded “sick of Christmas music-itis.” Last fall, I committed to listening to Xmas tunes on November 14th at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas in the middle of a long tour. Verdict? Still way too early. So….

…I’m NOT going to talk about Christmas music. Yet.

Instead, I’d like to talk about our touring program “My end is my beginning”. The program is centered around our new recording on BIS Records endBeginning. The centerpieces of the program are Thomas Crecquillon’s Lamentations of Jeremiah and Antoine Brumel’s Missa pro defunctis or Requiem Mass. We enjoy singing this program both in churches and concert halls because there is such a human element to this repertoire. And in this fall season when we celebrate Veteran’s Day, All Saints and All Souls Days, Alumni weekends and other times of remembrance it seems especially appropriate.

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve learned a great deal about how we approach polyphonic music in general by singing the Crecquillon. There are lessons there in great abundance:

1. BREATH CONTROL – Crecquillon wrote very long phrases. And since we believe the Lamentations were written for minimal forces, it’s reasonable to assume that the singers at his disposal were quite gifted. So, through the Lamentations, we’ve been challenged to crack the code of making music out of what can feel at times like organ music! (Since we’re one-to-a-part, there’s nowhere to hide!) Crecquillon doesn’t set the singer up for failure, he gives clues by way of the “harmonic” language. The long phrases have clear destinations which, I feel, help guide us toward the “complete picture” Crecquillon intended.

2. ENSEMBLE TECHNIQUE – Like all polyphony, there are points of both disjunct and conjunct arrival in the Lamentations. Without an acute sense of what your colleagues are doing with their own vocal lines, those corners can be either sloppy in timing or they fail to fall into precise tuning. Without a conductor, we each have the responsibility to one another to be both accurate in our own internal rhythm and sensitive to the motion of our fellow singers. I daresay that rhythmic integrity has every bit as much effect on tuning as a good ear.

3. DRAMATIC INTENT – One does not have to be a person of great faith to be moved by the texts in the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Desolation doesn’t just pertain to the destruction of civilizations or the repression of faith. Much like the melancholic songs of John Dowland speak to more than just the broken-hearted, these sacred texts of the destruction of Jerusalem and the desecration of a people are emotions to which all humans can find a latching point. And like the catharsis in Dowland’s laments, there is a relief to these settings of the Lamentations. One is not left to struggle in the mire, but rather is uplifted by Crecquillon’s impassioned vocal writing. As I love to say colloquially – “good tunes!” We’ve matured a lot as an ensemble through working on the dramatic intent of this work. The lessons we’ve learned—about committing to expressiveness in particular—are ones that can be applied to our other music.

Thanks for reading!

— GW

]]>1161Do you want to hear what I hear?http://www.newyorkpolyphony.com/do-you-want-to-hear-what-i-hear/
Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:38:18 +0000http://www.newyorkpolyphony.com/?p=721On Thursday, we embarked on our three week “Christmas” tour. (Technically, our tour was supposed to begin on Wednesday, but high winds conspired against us and our flight was canceled.) At three weeks, our tour will be the LONGEST tour NYP has ever attempted. So, it’s anyone’s guess if we’ll be on speaking terms when all is said and done.

Complicating things is the amount of driving ahead of us. We rented a mid-size SUV in Kansas City and, from there, we’re driving to the first 3 gigs: Omaha, Oklahoma City, and Topeka. If you don’t have a map of the American Midwest, trust us– it’s a lot of miles. So, to keep things friendly and to prevent us from chatting ourselves hoarse, our iPods come to the rescue. And, since it’s that time of year again, our playlists will likely feature our favorite Christmas records as well as some classic driving music. Here’s what I will be contributing to the mix:

I’ll never forget our drive into the Kansas sunset in September 2009 listening to Tom Petty’s Into the Great Wide Open and Bruce’s Born in the U.S.A. from top to finish, so I for sure want to revisit these records. But it’s really the season for holiday tunes.

It’s no secret how geeked I get around Christmastime each year. It’s probably due in part to my involvement in more than a half dozen Christmas recordings since I was a kid. I love Christmas music in almost all forms and aim to add a new record or two to the collection each year. I haven’t made my decision about what I want to hear in the car, but here’s what gets the spins every year:

Jingle All the Way – Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
I bought this on iTunes with a birthday gift card from our former baritone Scott Dispensa in 2008. It blew me away that Christmas and I often allow it to keep playing if it shuffles around the iPod out of season. What an amazing collection of musicians. Four of the most amazing musical brains playing their asses off! Vic Wooten’s solo version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” may possibly rival Nat King Cole, no joke! It’s a real breath of fresh air after too many covers of “All I Want For Christmas is You” and “This Christmas”… which remain my two LEAST favourite holiday tunes.

The Carol Album – Andrew Parrott, Taverner Consort and Players
This record is the recorded fruit of the New Oxford Book of Carols which gave us much of the material for I sing the birth

O magnum misterium: Twentieth Century Carols – Polyphony
Directed by Stephen Layton, this record is also a great inspiration for I sing the birth programming. My Christmas purchase in 2002 and a favorite every year since.

A Renaissance Christmas – Early Music New York
This program was my first professional early music gig and it’s full of so many golden oldies for an early music nerd like me. It’s also linked to the Christmas that me and missus got engaged in 2003. Lots of warm fuzzies with this record.

And I guess I should include Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s a no brainer, I know. But I prefer not to play this record until I start trimming the tree sometime around Advent IV. It’s the first record I play when the wrapping paper starts ripping on Christmas Day.

I have no idea what everyone else wants to hear, but I’m sure it will be all over the map. Let’s just hope Craig doesn’t want monopolize the radio with his insatiable appetite for the music of Daryl Hall & John Oates!